I approached the casket to pay my
last respects. I was unsettled by the feeling that anyone could have been
inside. The undertaker could have switched his body with someone else’s. It
wouldn’t have been surprising. He’d messed up already, overlapping our calling
hours with someone else’s; he didn’t even realize his mistake until we showed
up while the others were still grieving. We stood outside fluctuating between
sadness and boredom for an hour, waiting for them to finish sulking so the
undertaker could switch the caskets. Maybe it seemed like too much work to do
in a matter of minutes and he chose instead to just close the lid on the
morning corpse.
It didn’t seem fair. Crying and
stroking that mahogany box without knowing if he really lay inside. I waited
until calling hours were over. I considered hiding in the bathroom, but worried
the undertaker would lock me out of the parlor-like room. Instead, I bent over beside
the table full of photos and other tokens of nostalgia. Pretended to tie my
shoe even though it had no laces. Then I tipped to the left and rolled under
the black tablecloth. No one noticed, likely too caught up wondering how they
looked when they cried.
I sat there listening to the sobs
and occasional laughs slowly trail off. Finally I heard the last pair of big
feet clod out of the room, the door shut and the lock click as the lights went
out. I crawled out from under the table. Sat on my butt and waited for my eyes
to adjust to the darkness. I stood up, flicked the light back on and approached
the casket. The lid was heavier than I thought, as though safeguarding against
restless cadavers eager to break out.
It was hard to know if it was
James. When the dryer lit his hair on fire, he would’ve been fine if he had
just calmed down a minute. Paid attention to the fact that he unscrewed the
bottle of hairspray, not the spray bottle of water. Flames engulfed his skull
and melted his skin, his eyes, his hair. There was nothing I recognized.
The faulty Bon Air 260 had since
been recalled, having spewed flames at countless tresses across the country. But
none of the accidents compared to the travesty that befell James. It was even
on the news. I declined the reporter’s request for an interview, but still they
ran the story. I laughed when I turned on the television and saw his old
yearbook shot – probably courtesy of an old teacher or classmate hoping to get
some screen time. He was unsmiling, trying but failing to look debonair. If
anything, he looked like a perp glaring for his obligatory mug shot, morphing the
story from a fatal home accident to some sinister crime – a feather-haired
twenty-something terrorizing the nation with a defunct hair dryer.
Thank god I didn’t find him. If I
had, I might have laughed. And how would that have looked to the police who had
arrived shortly after our neighbor’s call reporting James’ screams? They
wouldn’t have cared when I explained laughter is the way I naturally react to
stressful situations, that I just can’t help it. The story would morph once
again, this time to a homicide – envious girlfriend lights boyfriend’s stellar
hair on fire.
If only he hadn’t been so vain.
In the shower he’d spend several minutes gently massaging and lathering his
scalp, slowly working the shampoo up through the tips of his hair, separating
it into small spikes to make sure each strand had been properly cleaned and
cared for. When he was satisfied, he’d rinse out the soap, tipping his head
back and letting the water cascade down his chestnut locks like a goddamn
model. Then he’d repeat the whole process with conditioner. “Why do you need to
condition your hair,” I’d fume. “It’s not even that long.” “You know it makes
my hair softer and fuller. I thought you liked that.” I did, but I’d never
admit it. “I don’t care what your hair looks like. I’m not that shallow, Jim.”
It didn’t bother him, though,
comfortable with the pride he took in his appearance. When the dryer caught his
hair, his first thought was probably how best to disentangle it without splitting
the ends. When the first flame caught, he probably panicked about how he’d look
with a buzz cut, or worse, bald.
James methodically manicured just about every
bit of his body, from tediously cleansing and styling his hair, to skillfully
trimming, filing and buffing his nails till they shone. (Don’t get me started
on the full-body moisturizing.) I grabbed his hands from the casket but they
were marred, too. The idiot must have grabbed his head, still trying to save
his precious hair. I lifted his shirt. Coarse black hair traced the smooth
olive skin between his bellybutton and slacks. I rubbed his stomach. My belly
button was so deep the bottom was indecipherable, but his was wide and shallow.
Hardly a button at all. I used to stick my finger in it and wiggle it around.
Sometimes I’d find a piece of blue-gray lint in there, caught in the wiry hair.
I’d thrust it in front of his face like a small victory. He hated when I did that. I did it right then, hoping I could
count on the undertaker’s carelessness to find another piece of lint.

About the author:Melissa Brooks lives in Boulder, CO where she writes fiction and cultural criticism. Her work has appeared in Subterranean Quarterly and Vannevar.